Cape Storm Page 0,73

on to each other!" he yelled.

"Just like you're in a huddle! And keep kicking!" Now the survivors looked like a giant skydiving stunt, concentric rings of people floating with their arms around each other.

Scared, sure, but human contact helped, especially for those who couldn't swim or were too terrified to remember how.

I bobbed in place, watching them for a moment, and then I called sharks.

Lewis felt the pulse traveling out through the water, and he knew what it meant. I saw his head snap around, his eyes widen, and the shock and horror on his face set up a warm, liquid glow deep inside me.

"Now I've got your attention," I said. "Don't I?" There weren't enough Earth Wardens to control big predators like sharks, not if they had to be focused on not drowning at the same time. The Fire and Weather Wardens would be completely vulnerable.

There were thousands of sharks out there. Thousands.

And now they turned and headed our way, drawn by an imaginary smell of blood in the water.

Something in Lewis's face changed. He'd made a decision, not one he liked. I wondered what it was.

Between the two of us, a vividly painted craft suddenly erupted through the waves. It was reflective yellow, bright as a traffic sign, and it was completely enclosed, sleek as a science fiction submarine.

A lifeboat.

More of them were popping up now, all around the Wardens. Lewis - or Venna - had broken them free of the sinking wreck. "Ladders at the back!" Lewis yelled. "Last row of the circle boards first! Each one of these will take about forty people. Wardens, I want a minimum of three of you per boat, and try to evenly distribute the powers!" The railings around the ship were studded with these strange little craft - fiberglass, highly buoyant, with diesel engines and very little chance of being swamped even in high seas. I assumed they'd have life vests and provisions inside.

It was a race to see if he could get the Wardens into the boats before my sharks arrived for their feast. Lewis correctly deployed his forces, keeping the Earth Wardens focused on repelling attacking predators as the Fire and Weather Wardens, staff, and crew boarded their ships. Then he evacuated the last of them.

I bobbed in the pounding waves, cold and shivering, watching.

The Grand Paradise, that floating castle, rolled like a dying whale, heeling in the direction of its fatal wound, and then the stern rose at a ninety-degree angle out of the water, exposing the massive propulsion pods and steering mechanisms. I could see, very briefly, the entertainment area of the ship that I'd never had time to visit - the rock-climbing wall, the pools, the spas.

And then it all slipped beneath the waves with a deep, gurgling death groan, churning foam and debris, and was gone in less than a minute.

I put my face beneath the water and watched its free-fall descent into the dark, and laughed, because even if the Wardens survived all this, that was going to be one hell of a security deposit problem.

I was still laughing when something suddenly lunged up from the depths at me. I had one flash of a second to recognize the gaping maw, the dead eyes.

Shark.

Sometimes, no matter who you are, or how powerful, Mother Nature still wins.

I floated on my back, bouncing on the churning waves, watching clouds fly in black, menacing swoops overhead. My storm circled in thwarted, anxious fury.

I was bleeding badly, and I couldn't seem to stop it. I'd blown the shark into bloody meat, but too late; it had gouged a giant chunk from my thigh, and although I'd shut down the pain receptors, I knew how bad it was. The power I had at my command wasn't meant to heal. It was meant to destroy.

Maybe it was a hallucination, but I could have sworn Bad Bob was standing on the wave-tops, looking down at me. He was wearing that same crappy, loud Hawaiian shirt, and his thin white hair blew in the same wind that blew spume from the water into my mouth as I struggled for air.

"What is it the kids today say, Jo? Epic fail?" He crouched down next to me. I could see the water rippling over his toes, but he could have been standing on concrete, while my struggles to stay afloat were getting weaker and weaker. "I think you let this happen. I think you were so damn guilty, you thought a shark bite